Guild Wars 2

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.
To be frank, stealth shouldn’t be the default state you fall back to as soon as you’re not attacking. But thieves are so squishy and lacking in other forms of survivability that it seems they don’t have much of a choice but to do exactly that.
Revealing yourself should be something you commit to in combat, and stealth should be a precious resource you occasionally go into (“occasional” in the context of GW2 combat, is perhaps something to the effect of every 15 to 20 seconds on average). Forms of perma-stealth playstyles are just too unfun to play against and as such are unsuitable for an MMO.
You have to have very well developed stealth mechanics for them to be fun for all involved parties, which is necessary for any sort of multiplayer environment. But GW2 doesn’t have that, GW2 just has straight up invisibility on a cooldown.

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.
To be frank, stealth shouldn’t be the default state you fall back to as soon as you’re not attacking. But thieves are so squishy and lacking in other forms of survivability that it seems they don’t have much of a choice but to do exactly that.
Revealing yourself should be something you commit to in combat, and stealth should be a precious resource you occasionally go into (“occasional” in the context of GW2 combat, is perhaps something to the effect of every 15 to 20 seconds on average). Forms of perma-stealth playstyles are just too unfun to play against and as such are unsuitable for an MMO.
You have to have very well developed stealth mechanics for them to be fun for all involved parties, which is necessary for any sort of multiplayer environment. But GW2 doesn’t have that, GW2 just has straight up invisibility on a cooldown.

Stealth in this game isn’t that bad, most players that have a hard time with it just need to learn the mechanics and then they will see it’s not as bad as they thought. Furthermore being revealed any longer then 3-4 seconds will drastically cripple a thief. Mesmers on the other hand can get the debuff but they have so many ways of surviving this will barely affect them.

Imagine yourself in a big fight and the revenant starts to focus you with his teammates lol they’re worse than ranger sic ems or engi analyse cause they’ll be equipping that utility all the time once they’re using Glint. Like A-net what’s wrong with you? Unrelenting Assult even evades now lol

Nephrite.6954:

Imagine yourself in a big fight and the revenant starts to focus you with his teammates lol they’re worse than ranger sic ems or engi analyse cause they’ll be equipping that utility all the time once they’re using Glint. Like A-net what’s wrong with you? Unrelenting Assult even evades now lol

This, Even if you go Stealth at same time or slightly after they press Unrelenting Assault, they will stay with you.

A 20sc CD AoE Reveal/blind that gives Fury isnt someone a Revenant will hold back on.

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.
To be frank, stealth shouldn’t be the default state you fall back to as soon as you’re not attacking. But thieves are so squishy and lacking in other forms of survivability that it seems they don’t have much of a choice but to do exactly that.
Revealing yourself should be something you commit to in combat, and stealth should be a precious resource you occasionally go into (“occasional” in the context of GW2 combat, is perhaps something to the effect of every 15 to 20 seconds on average). Forms of perma-stealth playstyles are just too unfun to play against and as such are unsuitable for an MMO.
You have to have very well developed stealth mechanics for them to be fun for all involved parties, which is necessary for any sort of multiplayer environment. But GW2 doesn’t have that, GW2 just has straight up invisibility on a cooldown.

I agree wholeheartedly, as both someone who has been playing other classes and a huge advocate for Thief.

The core problem with our class is that the stealth mechanics are our life-blood, so to speak. Too much of our survival is based around breaking PvE enemy aggro by entering stealth and using it to recoup initiative, health, and cool-down.

It’s also our means of usurping opportunity, which, in the vanilla game and PvE realms, has always felt like Thief’s purpose. Even our skill mechanic, Initiative, gives an opportunistic feel.

Right now Arena Net has two options:

• Reformulate Stealth: Scrub the stealth mechanics and start over, giving Thief a more solid baseline of combat potential and survivability and re-imagining Stealth as it should be: a combination of diversion and clever positioning to seize the upper hand and beguile your foes.
  -or-
• Add Reveal Counter-play: Dial up the effectiveness of Stealth and provide more access to Revealed whilst also making the latter a true condition that can be removed (such as by reworking some of the redundant skills into Diversions* to act as a counter-counter-play methodology).

As things stand, our biggest problem is PvP, where it’s no longer breaking aggro but visibility. Humans don’t just turn around after 3 seconds and wander back to their patrol area, they hammer the vicinity in AoEs. And because PvP likes to complain very vocally, a vast portion of the game has been changing to accommodate (after the decision was made not to split the two); this means that the second option would be a moot point. Improving Stealth would only anger people further, and the last thing we need is more “teef op wah” threads.

So frankly, it makes sense to redesign Stealth mechanics entirely, as that seems to be what most everyone complains about. Not to mention Stealth, to enemy players, should be that “oh kitten!” moment, rather than a “not again …”

*: To explain the Diversion rationale, Revealed is one of the only player-invocable, non-removable debuffs I can think of. While it serves a purpose, it feels designed to counteract stealth mechanics on NPCs … which are almost nonexistent outside of Skelk. Keeping it universal as a holdover from maintaining a more simplistic design instead placed the burden upon the PCs; Thief has a debuff almost unique to them which, when active, severely limits their survivability and combat potential. Since ArenaNet seems to be very into “counter-play” of late, especially with the Boon/Condition pairing, it would seem logical to add a counter-play to the Revealed debuff by literally creating a diversion to remove it.

Edit:
In the reworking of Stealth, I would say this could well maintain the status quo inasmuch that it has been viewed for some time as our main form of burst/spike damage. Backstab and Sneak Attack can devastate foes if done correctly, and Thief is the only class to receive Stealth Attacks.

Consider it as being the analog to Warrior’s adrenal skills.

If these attacks were enhanced alongside a reworking of the Stealth mechanic, and Thief received a much-needed boost to durability, little would ultimately change. We could still maintain a Stealth-focused style of gameplay whilst providing both a reason for Stealth to exist (as something other than our go-to defense) and for Reveal to be as commonplace and potent as it is.

Reveal seems intended as a shut-down or denial. If so, we should restructure Stealth to legitimately warrant such a treatment.

I dont agree with making stealh harder to use/get. I like Stealth play. It adds to the game, it adds to pve, wvw and pvp, you take it away in one part of the game it goes away in all parts.

Faux.1937:

I dont agree with making stealh harder to use/get. I like Stealth play. It adds to the game, it adds to pve, wvw and pvp, you take it away in one part of the game it goes away in all parts.

I enjoy it, too. Spent too long skulking about in Elder Scrolls games to say otherwise.

Unfortunately, it seems that stealth is becoming a Sisyphean battle. To retain it as-is, Thief desperately needs more counter-play against Reveal, but in so doing, we’d be creating a scenario where Stealth will just become an exchange of Stealth-Reveal-Stealth-Reveal wash, rinse, repeat.

If anything, creating another scenario of “how many times can I proc X?” will be the same reason that Blind fields got nerfed, except this time, it would come down to “how many sources of Stealth/Reveal do I have off cool-down?”

(If you’ve ever played the Disgaea series, this is the point where you imagine a Thief’s Stealth vs. Reveal in PvP/WvW as the stupidly long counter attack chains …)

The most favorable act is to give us the survival we need while allowing Stealth to serve a purpose rather than act as our panacea, and that means fundamentally altering the way the mechanic operates and is tied into the class.

Counter play is fine if thief wasnt so Dependent on it. Either make less counter play to it, or give thief more options.

Honestly Im for thief more options one.

Faux.1937:

Counter play is fine if thief wasnt so Dependent on it. Either make less counter play to it, or give thief more options.

Honestly Im for thief more options one.

What I’m trying to recommend is that we break said dependency. Thief is entirely too reliant on being able to reliably (and frequently) enter Stealth right now, both in PvE and PvP modes.

OP pointed out how there are now too many sources of Reveal, which severely limits our capacity for … much of anything because, as you said, our class is crippled without Stealth.

If Acrobatics didn’t suck and Shadow Arts served more of a purpose than forcing us into Stealth-focused gameplay — and thus gave Thief the baseline durability that was gutted from us during the content patch — we’d have more options because we’re no longer dependent on Stealth to survive.

Again you guys are assuming a thief that isn’t fighting is stealthed, if you’re always stealth you’re not doing anything…. You can’t capped while stealthed or do damage. Yes I’m up for adding up more ways than stealth that a thief can survive, but doing away with it completely is not an option.

Lyger.5429:

Again you guys are assuming a thief that isn’t fighting is stealthed, if you’re always stealth you’re not doing anything…. You can’t capped while stealthed or do damage. Yes I’m up for adding up more ways than stealth that a thief can survive, but doing away with it completely is not an option.

We arnt always stealth, we use stealth to, do either or all, Heal, Removal Condi, Not to get hit with spike damage, and in general survive.

If we needed to get out of a situation and we are reveal, we are dead, if we need to remove that 9 burning and go to stealth, get revealed we re dead. If we needed to set up burst damage and get reveal, we cant burst.

Its going to get to the point stealth will almost be to hard to even use with to much counter play, Stealth doesnt need that much counter play.

But thief also doesnt need to be that dependent on stealth too.

Faux.1937:

Lyger.5429:

Again you guys are assuming a thief that isn’t fighting is stealthed, if you’re always stealth you’re not doing anything…. You can’t capped while stealthed or do damage. Yes I’m up for adding up more ways than stealth that a thief can survive, but doing away with it completely is not an option.

We arnt always stealth, we use stealth to, do either or all, Heal, Removal Condi, Not to get hit with spike damage, and in general survive.

If we needed to get out of a situation and we are reveal, we are dead, if we need to remove that 9 burning and go to stealth, get revealed we re dead. If we needed to set up burst damage and get reveal, we cant burst.

Its going to get to the point stealth will almost be to hard to even use with to much counter play, Stealth doesnt need that much counter play.

But thief also doesnt need to be that dependent on stealth too.

I agree with you, that was intended for the others agreeing with Anet’s overuse of revealed.

fluffdragon.1523:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.
To be frank, stealth shouldn’t be the default state you fall back to as soon as you’re not attacking. But thieves are so squishy and lacking in other forms of survivability that it seems they don’t have much of a choice but to do exactly that.
Revealing yourself should be something you commit to in combat, and stealth should be a precious resource you occasionally go into (“occasional” in the context of GW2 combat, is perhaps something to the effect of every 15 to 20 seconds on average). Forms of perma-stealth playstyles are just too unfun to play against and as such are unsuitable for an MMO.
You have to have very well developed stealth mechanics for them to be fun for all involved parties, which is necessary for any sort of multiplayer environment. But GW2 doesn’t have that, GW2 just has straight up invisibility on a cooldown.

I agree wholeheartedly, as both someone who has been playing other classes and a huge advocate for Thief.

The core problem with our class is that the stealth mechanics are our life-blood, so to speak. Too much of our survival is based around breaking PvE enemy aggro by entering stealth and using it to recoup initiative, health, and cool-down.

It’s also our means of usurping opportunity, which, in the vanilla game and PvE realms, has always felt like Thief’s purpose. Even our skill mechanic, Initiative, gives an opportunistic feel.

Right now Arena Net has two options:

• Reformulate Stealth: Scrub the stealth mechanics and start over, giving Thief a more solid baseline of combat potential and survivability and re-imagining Stealth as it should be: a combination of diversion and clever positioning to seize the upper hand and beguile your foes.
  -or-
• Add Reveal Counter-play: Dial up the effectiveness of Stealth and provide more access to Revealed whilst also making the latter a true condition that can be removed (such as by reworking some of the redundant skills into Diversions* to act as a counter-counter-play methodology).

As things stand, our biggest problem is PvP, where it’s no longer breaking aggro but visibility. Humans don’t just turn around after 3 seconds and wander back to their patrol area, they hammer the vicinity in AoEs. And because PvP likes to complain very vocally, a vast portion of the game has been changing to accommodate (after the decision was made not to split the two); this means that the second option would be a moot point. Improving Stealth would only anger people further, and the last thing we need is more “teef op wah” threads.

So frankly, it makes sense to redesign Stealth mechanics entirely, as that seems to be what most everyone complains about. Not to mention Stealth, to enemy players, should be that “oh kitten!” moment, rather than a “not again …”

*: To explain the Diversion rationale, Revealed is one of the only player-invocable, non-removable debuffs I can think of. While it serves a purpose, it feels designed to counteract stealth mechanics on NPCs … which are almost nonexistent outside of Skelk. Keeping it universal as a holdover from maintaining a more simplistic design instead placed the burden upon the PCs; Thief has a debuff almost unique to them which, when active, severely limits their survivability and combat potential. Since ArenaNet seems to be very into “counter-play” of late, especially with the Boon/Condition pairing, it would seem logical to add a counter-play to the Revealed debuff by literally creating a diversion to remove it.

Edit:
In the reworking of Stealth, I would say this could well maintain the status quo inasmuch that it has been viewed for some time as our main form of burst/spike damage. Backstab and Sneak Attack can devastate foes if done correctly, and Thief is the only class to receive Stealth Attacks.

Consider it as being the analog to Warrior’s adrenal skills.

If these attacks were enhanced alongside a reworking of the Stealth mechanic, and Thief received a much-needed boost to durability, little would ultimately change. We could still maintain a Stealth-focused style of gameplay whilst providing both a reason for Stealth to exist (as something other than our go-to defense) and for Reveal to be as commonplace and potent as it is.

Reveal seems intended as a shut-down or denial. If so, we should restructure Stealth to legitimately warrant such a treatment.

Absolutely.

Seems to me that most games which successfully incorporate stealth break it down into two forms:

• A long-duration, primarily non-combat “sneak” mechanic, that depends heavily on your environment, i.e. breaking LoS.
• A short-duration, in-combat “invisibility” mechanic that relies on skill usage.

GW2 Stealth is an “invisiblity” mechanic, but the classes that use it (Mesmer and Thief, mainly) both have the ability to stack it up into a long-duration effect to cover some of the same ground as “sneak”. And this is the core of the Stealth balance problem in GW2, I think.

Invisibility with less than kitten duration doesn’t need a counter-mechanic, because opponents can play around the timing instead. But when invisibility goes beyond the 5s threshold, then you can’t play around timing any more — this is what upsets people so much about PU Mesmers — and a counter-mechanic becomes necessary.

So, basically, GW2’s implementation of Stealth is inherently flawed, And they can’t fix it without creating bigger problems. Even if Stealth-stacking were removed, Stealth-chaining would still be possible, which would still necessitate Revealed. Worse, removing Stealth-stacking would completely break skills like Shadow Refuge.

Seems to me the only thing ANet can do at this point is re-evaluate the Thief’s survivability mechanics so they have good defensive options other than Stealth and one or two sources of Blind-spam.

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

Kocoff.7582:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

I dunno. if we could take hits, then reveal would be less of an issue. the issue with reveal at the moment is that we’re squishy enough that we can die due to a single reveal quite easily. if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

Gray.9041:

Kocoff.7582:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

I dunno. if we could take hits, then reveal would be less of an issue. the issue with reveal at the moment is that we’re squishy enough that we can die due to a single reveal quite easily. if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

Which is precisely the matter at hand and why we’re so up in arms over Reveal, everyone. Thank you, Gray, for spelling it out so nicely.

A couple posts above its use in other games is split into two concepts. I tend to think of it in D&D and Fallout terms, which fits the “sneak” mode mentioned. In that schema, you get one chance to surprise someone with an attack. After that, you’re on your own until you can break LoS, audible range, or similar “find you” skills.

When people complain about stealth, they’re complaining about not being visible after that first attack. That’s what people hate. I think most nerfs are focused on that usage. And since it’s an option in GW2, they’ve built our defenses into it as a type of balance—sure you can sneak in combat, but you’ll need it to survive, not just attack. As previously mentioned, they need to be decoupled. Right now it’s like trying to adjust a sound board where two levels are locked to each other.

I would much prefer to have sneak skills for recon and more traditional offensive/defensive skills than what we currently have. Then sneak skills could be adjusted without crippling the class AND we could actually take more than a hit or two before being forced to run away.

fluffdragon.1523:

Gray.9041:

Kocoff.7582:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

I dunno. if we could take hits, then reveal would be less of an issue. the issue with reveal at the moment is that we’re squishy enough that we can die due to a single reveal quite easily. if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

Which is precisely the matter at hand and why we’re so up in arms over Reveal, everyone. Thank you, Gray, for spelling it out so nicely.

+1

Sunflowers.1729:

Our defense is being able to reset the fight at any time you want, keep an enemy permanently blinded, and also a zero-cooldown ranged daze (hi rapid fire). Withdraw is another dodge and you have 50% vigor up time just from trickery.

Edit: Permanent blind may vary depending on enemy. Also Glint’s reveal is on a small radius (360), it’s nowhere near that of a shout (600)

Kocoff.7582:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

That’s the point I was trying to get at, how would increasing the reveal time help at all? And as the post above me states initiative is not a spam to win system it’s just another form of cooldowns. Only people that play the profession enough can understand the consequences of changing certain aspects of thief gameplay.

fluffdragon.1523:

Gray.9041:

Kocoff.7582:

Arewn.2368:

Non-thief player chiming in.
I actually think they should increase the revealed time, and buff other forms of thief survivability to compensate.

No no no. Increase reveal time? 4 seconds is long enough to get us killed. Not only that but our most efficient skills namely, Backstab, require stealth.

Thief and stealth is inherently bounded. Anet cannot expect to add a Reveal skill to half the professions AND expect Thieves to casually cope with this. Something has to be done, the more powerful the reveal, the weaker the Thief. This is a direct correlation.

Maybe they do need to rework on the Stealth mechanism like some of us are suggesting, but anyone who played thief just a few times would understand how deadly Reveal is most combats. For the Mesmer, Invisibility is optional, Trapper Ranger, Invisibility is clearly optional, I am pretty sure Stealth is not optional for the thief.

All those reveal mechanics makes me think Thief Elite spec with Staff will not have any invisibility skills.

I dunno. if we could take hits, then reveal would be less of an issue. the issue with reveal at the moment is that we’re squishy enough that we can die due to a single reveal quite easily. if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

if we got to a point where we could tank hits enough to survive a reveal or two, then it’d have more to do with damage/positioning, and less with health.

Which is precisely the matter at hand and why we’re so up in arms over Reveal, everyone. Thank you, Gray, for spelling it out so nicely.

I am not sure I can agree with you two gentlemen and I hope you have more convincing arguments. I see where you are going, but fixing damage/ positioning still won’t change anything to my eyes.

I know these are two differents games, but if you get caught (aka Revealed) in MGS or Splinter Cell you are pretty much kittened. In GW2, you are almost instantly dead.

I do not see what kind of damage or positioning mechanism could help me deal with this reveal.
Talking about positioning or damage does not fix the reveal issue, it feels like disposing a body with a trash bag : It’s clumsy, smells bad, and it’s visible, and it will get you arrested.

One of you mentioned being able to take enough hits to bypass the consequences of a reveal. Taking hits is one thing, but what is the point If we are not even allowed to land a backstab?! Please remember that the Herald’s Facet of Darkness/ Gaze of Darkness has 20 seconds CD. No matter how much reveal you can take with a good pool of HP, it is insane to fight them.

Let us imagine a fight with those kittens:
- Gaze of Darkeness is used. (20 secs of CD activated)
- you are revealed. 5 seconds. full defensive. (15 secs left)
- Black Smoke + Heartseeker Combo take about 2 seconds or so. ( 13 seconds left)
- Positioning and chasing time take about 2 secs let’s say. (11 seconds before skill reset)
- 11 seconds left until next Gaze of Darkness.

I want to be very reasonable here, but it doesn’t take 11 seconds to kill a smart Herald. We all know how the longer the fight as thief the less chance we have at winning.

Facet of Darkness/ Gaze of Darkness is a deadly combination of CONSTANT Fury (20% crit chance) and a 5 sec reveal applicable to 5 targets. If this isn’t OP gentlemen, idk what is.
So you can be sure while roaming in WvW to find every Revenant to rock this
Shiro Tagachi/Glint Build* ALL THE TIME. We will learn the real definition of " Hard Counter"

I thought the intention of the Thief was the typical quick, get in & get out, clean kill kind of profession. Our safest defense line is skill. In other words we are not supposed to get hit. period simple AOE or AA can wreck us, we have to dodge this even while hiding in the shadows.

A -To non-Thief players, Stealth is Disney-Land trick some of us abuse to for the sake of lols.( notice the Thief cannot attack you while invisible so you are just as safe.)
B -To Thief players, Stealth is absolutely crucial. We don’t really have an alternative. I pretty much only stay revealed when my enemy is in Black Powder. Other than that, I am in real danger of being 1-shoted.

If we were absolutely fine being revealed, most of us would have had a build with Revealed Training.

I hope you reconsider how useless this is going to make us.

*Edit Note : Shiro Tagachi/Glint Build is the perfect combination of offense and defense that could easily pull off 80% crit chance with that Utility skill… We can’t even reach 70% with a decent health pool.

A correction Kocoff, a thief can “attack” while invisible. Just not on a power build. Condi builds with Uncatchable + Pressure Striking/Perplexity/Sleight of Hand or Bewildering Ambush can fairly easily rack up kills while never breaking stealth.

As far as the thief go, the thief only deserves to get the durability out of stealth it desires if it doesn’t have obscene durability in stealth. Being able to shrug off revealed should imply that the gains from stealth should be negligible, as then you have just an extremely durable high-hitting high mobility spec with extended stealth for mind games.

Kocoff.7582:

I know these are two differents games, but if you get caught (aka Revealed) in MGS or Splinter Cell you are pretty much kittened. In GW2, you are almost instantly dead.

I do not see what kind of damage or positioning mechanism could help me deal with this reveal.
Talking about positioning or damage does not fix the reveal issue, it feels like disposing a body with a trash bag : It’s clumsy, smells bad, and it’s visible, and it will get you arrested.

as mentioned above, some tankiness/defence would help with this. the idea being if we weren’t insta-gibbed on reveal, it’d only impact our damage and strategy – it would be more skill-based – counter play to stealth as an offensive strategy without crippling our defences.

Kocoff.7582:

One of you mentioned being able to take enough hits to bypass the consequences of a reveal. Taking hits is one thing, but what is the point If we are not even allowed to land a backstab?! Please remember that the Herald’s Facet of Darkness/ Gaze of Darkness has 20 seconds CD. No matter how much reveal you can take with a good pool of HP, it is insane to fight them.

reveal – with the above changes – is no more powerful than an invuln, aegis or block. there are many times you won’t be able to pull off a backstab, that’s part of the strategy.

though, Facet of Darkness does feel pretty strong.

Pretty sure the new Thief elite spec will just be counter-counter-stealth. And thieves will be OP again. /S

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Pretty sure the new Thief elite spec will just be counter-counter-stealth. And thieves will be OP again. /S

Thieves dont need to be OP, just have room to play different styles without being handicapped.

I don’t want to be OP to be honest – I guess I want my old SA line back and I’m happy.

Edit: BUT anet really should think some more about the revealed traits and skills. Notonly from the viewpoint of thief but also the classes which can equip them and miss out on traits useful against all/more classes because of it.

A lot of dialog going on right now seems to ignore the fact that thief has zero durability altering traits outside of the Shadow Arts line (excepting Invigorating Precision, which must contest with the obscene No Quarter).

Our suggestions regarding altering the mechanics and usage of stealth aren’t just a “let’s kitten the poor Thief further” suggestion, as some seem to believe, but a fundamental change of the paradigm itself; change Thief and stealth, not just one.

Because that’s the problem we face. Stealth is proving less and less an assurance and more of a huge, gaping flaw. Thief has no real defenses outside of a few evasions, and as many have pointed out time and again, stealth remains our only real go-to.

What needs to be done is to remove Thief’s dependency on stealth for survival, and that’s precisely what we’re asking for.

It’s not about counter-play to Revealed, which my prior posts may not have gone into enough depth to truly spell out the errors in such logic (and the sweeping changes that would leave the class exactly where it is now); it’s about bringing Thief up to the same base-line as other classes which don’t fall apart when their singular form of physical burst damage and only defensive mechanism is denied them for a minimum of 4 seconds.

Gray.9041:

as mentioned above, some tankiness/defence would help with this. the idea being if we weren’t insta-gibbed on reveal, it’d only impact our damage and strategy – it would be more skill-based – counter play to stealth as an offensive strategy without crippling our defences.

As Gray mentioned above, Reveal is our bane right now. If we can turn Revealed status into a mere denial or debuff (think of it like a Champ’s Defiance but as its effect on the player), then Thief would need to have its survival boosted to compensate.

Thus our worries are resolved: Revealed would no longer kill us outright in many cases; Thief could finally take some hits; and Stealth would no longer be a necessity to do so while still allowing us to dish out burst damage, break LoS, escape, and overall harass our foes.

Edit:

Kocoff.7582:

Our safest defense line is skill. In other words we are not supposed to get hit. period simple AOE or AA can wreck us, we have to dodge this even while hiding in the shadows.

You do realize that you’ve literally spelled out everything wrong with our dependency on stealth, right? All you’re asking for is more assurance against a symptom, and in so doing letting the disease fester further.

If we can’t even survive hits, it doesn’t matter how “skilled” we (or our opponents) may or may not be, it’s just a matter of time.

And besides, how many times have we accidentally dodged into an AoE from a foe and gotten smeared across the floor? Retaining the broken Stealth/Revealed system won’t fix that.

Kocoff.7582:

Facet of Darkness/ Gaze of Darkness is a deadly combination of CONSTANT Fury (20% crit chance) and a 5 sec reveal applicable to 5 targets. If this isn’t OP gentlemen, idk what is.

Techincally, Revenants can trait so that Fury gives them 40% crit chance. And they can also get rather high crit chance bonus on vulnerable targets :p

A 0 precision revenant car easily crit close to 100% of the time, at least in PvE.

Making Valk armor kinda Viable, Wish thief could do Valk armor again.

We can add Bloody roar (elite war spec) to the list

http://i.imgur.com/O4ZxYAl.png

Lol my guess is they are trying to ruin every single build thieves currently have so players actually would have to run new spec thus forced to buy xpac….. dirty tactics, pathetic~

Cynz.9437:

Lol my guess is they are trying to ruin every single build thieves currently have so players actually would have to run new spec thus forced to buy xpac….. dirty tactics, pathetic~

If reliable cleansing and endurance(not vigor) regen is found in the new line I’ll believe you.

Sagat.3285:

Cynz.9437:

Lol my guess is they are trying to ruin every single build thieves currently have so players actually would have to run new spec thus forced to buy xpac….. dirty tactics, pathetic~

If reliable cleansing and endurance(not vigor) regen is found in the new line I’ll believe you.

we will see

fluffdragon.1523:

A lot of dialog going on right now seems to ignore the fact that thief has zero durability altering traits outside of the Shadow Arts line (excepting Invigorating Precision, which must contest with the obscene No Quarter).

Our suggestions regarding altering the mechanics and usage of stealth aren’t just a “let’s kitten the poor Thief further” suggestion, as some seem to believe, but a fundamental change of the paradigm itself; change Thief and stealth, not just one.

Because that’s the problem we face. Stealth is proving less and less an assurance and more of a huge, gaping flaw. Thief has no real defenses outside of a few evasions, and as many have pointed out time and again, stealth remains our only real go-to.

What needs to be done is to remove Thief’s dependency on stealth for survival, and that’s precisely what we’re asking for.

It’s not about counter-play to Revealed, which my prior posts may not have gone into enough depth to truly spell out the errors in such logic (and the sweeping changes that would leave the class exactly where it is now); it’s about bringing Thief up to the same base-line as other classes which don’t fall apart when their singular form of physical burst damage and only defensive mechanism is denied them for a minimum of 4 seconds.

Gray.9041:

as mentioned above, some tankiness/defence would help with this. the idea being if we weren’t insta-gibbed on reveal, it’d only impact our damage and strategy – it would be more skill-based – counter play to stealth as an offensive strategy without crippling our defences.

As Gray mentioned above, Reveal is our bane right now. If we can turn Revealed status into a mere denial or debuff (think of it like a Champ’s Defiance but as its effect on the player), then Thief would need to have its survival boosted to compensate.

Thus our worries are resolved: Revealed would no longer kill us outright in many cases; Thief could finally take some hits; and Stealth would no longer be a necessity to do so while still allowing us to dish out burst damage, break LoS, escape, and overall harass our foes.

Edit:

Kocoff.7582:

Our safest defense line is skill. In other words we are not supposed to get hit. period simple AOE or AA can wreck us, we have to dodge this even while hiding in the shadows.

You do realize that you’ve literally spelled out everything wrong with our dependency on stealth, right? All you’re asking for is more assurance against a symptom, and in so doing letting the disease fester further.

If we can’t even survive hits, it doesn’t matter how “skilled” we (or our opponents) may or may not be, it’s just a matter of time.

And besides, how many times have we accidentally dodged into an AoE from a foe and gotten smeared across the floor? Retaining the broken Stealth/Revealed system won’t fix that.

I am affraid you took it the wrong way. I did spell out everything that is wrong with it. I believe not talking about it is in fact " letting the disease fester further". I was pointing out that the fact that, skill, being our only true line of defense, makes this balancing scheme quite unreasonable and totally unfair. An unskilled Mesmer/engi/necro (anyone really) could easily take out a skilled Thief with well placed AoE.
THAT IS WHY, it needs to change. I hope it’s clearer now

Kocoff.7582:

I am affraid you took it the wrong way. I did spell out everything that is wrong with it. I believe not talking about it is in fact " letting the disease fester further". I was pointing out that the fact that, skill, being our only true line of defense, makes this balancing scheme quite unreasonable and totally unfair. An unskilled Mesmer/engi/necro (anyone really) could easily take out a skilled Thief with well placed AoE.
THAT IS WHY, it needs to change. I hope it’s clearer now

Yup, looks like I did. Sorry about that.

Cynz.9437:

Sagat.3285:

Cynz.9437:

Lol my guess is they are trying to ruin every single build thieves currently have so players actually would have to run new spec thus forced to buy xpac….. dirty tactics, pathetic~

If reliable cleansing and endurance(not vigor) regen is found in the new line I’ll believe you.

we will see

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3hde8l/data_mining_some_datamined_specialization/

http://i.imgur.com/EKtgtgJ.png

Not sure on “reliable” but that’s as close to it as it gets… It looks like vigor-ish to me though… maybe it stacks?

fluffdragon.1523:

Kocoff.7582:

I am affraid you took it the wrong way. I did spell out everything that is wrong with it. I believe not talking about it is in fact " letting the disease fester further". I was pointing out that the fact that, skill, being our only true line of defense, makes this balancing scheme quite unreasonable and totally unfair. An unskilled Mesmer/engi/necro (anyone really) could easily take out a skilled Thief with well placed AoE.
THAT IS WHY, it needs to change. I hope it’s clearer now

Yup, looks like I did. Sorry about that.

Gigitty.

thief should have a trait line in shadow to be unable to be reveal by other classes.

Taobella.6597:

thief should have a trait line in shadow to be unable to be reveal by other classes.

It would just be another mandatory trait I’m not sure why PU is not put back to it’s old self yet.

I don’t play thief, hate the playstyle, annnnd not too fond of the the types of players who do play it. But….really, WTF is going on with your acrobatics line? It makes no sense that Shadow arts has all your condition removal and some of the more rewarding perks, while your acrobatics line has nothing but very slight bonuses. I mean….like guarded initiation, seems like a great trait but you’re all naturally squishy, so your health won’t be above 90% to trigger that most of the time when you need it, and even then it doesn’t remove the damaging conditions.

I’m all in favor of buffs for thief that reward something else other than just steal thing up and ganking constantly, I remember facing some sword/dagger thieves before the spec patch and those were fun fights, close, hard to deal with, but least I could bloody see them and have some enjoyment.

Sagat.3285:

Taobella.6597:

thief should have a trait line in shadow to be unable to be reveal by other classes.

It would just be another mandatory trait I’m not sure why PU is not put back to it’s old self yet.

it would become about as mandatory as running a reveal utility / trait

After the patch it become to difficult to be thief. I`m having big problems with mesmers who dominate me easily, it does not matter if you dodge their burst and do great in the begging of the encounter, they simply prolong the fight and thief simply cannot stand in battle. I tried to use barbarian amulet and now i`m using sword, but 1vs1 is to hard now. Thief burst is not enough to drop the enemy, survivability is simple not enough, i`m getting revealed when trying to use SR, the reveal time is also to much. 3 seconds in stealth without SA and 3 seconds without stealth, make thief to exposed to attacks.